Hard Things: JJ, Up the Stairs and Beyond
by starofoberon
Summary: Just a few minutes in the head of JJ Jareau toward the end of Episode 100. ONESHOT


A/N 01: A few minutes inside the head of Jennifer Jareau toward the end of _Episode 100_. Not mine, yada yada …

A/N 02: All honor and glory to my bashful beta for keeping this stuff pretty much error-free. Actual content is all my fault.

**Hard Things: JJ Jareau, Up the Stairs and Beyond**

Approaching the house was hard—not knowing for sure what had gone on in there, but knowing that there had been shots fired. Knowing the people. Loving all of them. That was really hard. She could not bear to think about losing any of them to a sadistic creep's itchy trigger finger.

Entering the house was hard, because it was a crime scene, but it was also a crime in progress. So, step carefully, but public safety trumps forensics. But it smelled like a fresh crime scene, the smells of blood and urine and gunfire hanging heavy in the air. A fatal crime scene, at that. Wounded individuals as a rule maintained bladder and bowel control; dead individuals almost always did not. One of those icky things that crime shows rarely mentioned: the inevitability of relaxed sphincters. The worst part of it today was that it meant that someone was dead. _And people she loved were in this house._

Seeing his body was hard, sprawled with the top of his torso facing upward and the lower half turned slightly to his own right, his loosely fisted hands flung out to his sides, their knuckles raw and purple and swollen. She actually thought for an instant that he had been hit in the face with a cherry pie. She could see the dripping fruit and all the little pieces of crust where his face should be. When she realized what she was looking at … well, that was pretty much some of the worst she had ever seen.

Climbing the stairs was hard, seeing Morgan on the landing. There he was, acting Unit Chief for just a couple months, and now this, whatever had happened here, obviously had gone horribly wrong, and on his watch. Despair and exhaustion were carved deeply into his face and his body. Blood and not-really-cherry-pie marked his arms, his shirt, his shoulder. He looked at her drawn Glock and shook his head silently. _No._ Whatever had happened here was over. Done. Irreversible. Her heart in her throat, she holstered her weapon and continued her ascent.

Seeing her feet was hard, harder than she could have imagined, such tiny toes, and so still. She hoped beyond hope that one of the feet would stir. That she would hear the sounds at least of emergency medical personnel, sounds of an effort to save that sweet, strong woman. Hard as well was the sudden incongruous thought, _I must remember not to die with black polish on my toenails. That is just wrong._ Then the rush of guilt for thinking something so petty, so judgmental. Coming around the corner, still hoping for breath, for pulse, but seeing only blood congealing in the hollow of Haley's throat, and eyes bereft of light.

Seeing his eyes, haunted, the eyes of a man gutshot, was hard, his fists, his shirt, his face itself smeared with not-cherry-pie, his arms wrapped around the tiny boy in the blue Captain America shirt. Clinging to the child the way a drunk would cling to a lamppost. "Here," the man who had lost almost everything rasped, _"Go with Ms Jareau."_ He was obviously trying to shield the child from the sight of the still figure on the floor. He thrust the child at her with an expression of desperation.

And, oh, God, that was beyond hard, taking that little life into her arms, feeling him stirring, reaching back toward his daddy, whom he had not seen for months, now ripped from him once again, whimpering softly into her shoulder. "Want Daddy," he said, and she said, "In just a few minutes, honey; he has some things to do there. Let's go outside in the sunlight."

Carrying him down the stairs, past a shell-shocked, despairing Morgan. Carefully, so he didn't catch sight of the corpse of George Foyet and his ruined not-cherry-pie face. Past Rossi, in the shadows of the living room, offering some solace to a frustrated SWAT team member. Past Prentiss, seated on the front stoop, her knees drawn up, her face colorless. Past Reid, standing all alone in the shade of a single tree, arms folded, head hanging low.

And that was hard, too, because there was nothing normal about that sunlit day, not when the street was one seething mass of emergency vehicles of one kind or another, their lights pulsing as uniformed figures moved back and forth, no longer hurrying.

And the little boy twisted in her arms and peered at all the emergency personnel, and he blinked. "Where's Mama?" he asked. As her heart sank, he added, "She still sleepin'?"

Hardest of all. "Yes," she managed to croak. "She's still asleep."

He smiled and her heart shattered into a dozen pieces. "Daddy will wake her up. Daddy likes to wake Mommy."

The closest she could come to an honest answer was, "Oh, I hope so, Munchkin. I hope so."

Keeping her voice from breaking? Impossible.


End file.
